


Home

by FriendofCarlotta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Castiel and Dean Winchester Are Great Dads, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, POV Impala, You heard me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta
Summary: This is the story of a car, and the boy who loves it so fiercely, it becomes a home.As the boy grows into a man, his car is the one constant in his life. Until, one day, he meets an angel, and "home" takes on a new meaning.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 35
Kudos: 130





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired, as many of my writings are, by the lovely people of the Profound Bond Discord server. You should [join us](https://discord.gg/profoundbond)!
> 
> A big thank you to [duckyboos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckyboos/pseuds/Duckyboos), who is an amazing cheerleader, and who helped me make sure this thing made sense outside my own brain. (Her new horror AU is wonderful - check it out!)

There’s nothing but darkness, until there isn’t.

From one moment to the next, I feel the slide of wet asphalt under my tires, the rumble of my engine vibrating through me, the rattle of guns, knives and charms in my trunk whenever a pothole jostles my suspension.

These sensations are new and exciting, but they pale in comparison with a warm, golden glow that calls to my newborn consciousness.

The glow seems to emanate from the small body of a boy in my back seat, curled under a blanket alongside another, even smaller boy.

“The teacher at that last school,” the smaller boy says, “she asked everybody to talk about what their home looks like. Like, what rooms it has and stuff.” There is the sound of a whisper-quiet sniff, and the feel of two boys molding themselves more closely against the curve of my seat. “I didn’t know what to say.”

The glow pulsing from the older boy strengthens and swirls, suffusing me, threading through each sheet of metal, each nut and bolt, each wire and dial. For the first time, I feel. As each emotion rises inside the boy, it also rises inside me, and I hold it close. I feel it. I name it. Anger. Sadness. Regret. Grief. Love.

It seems an awful lot for such a small person to contain.

“Why don’t we have a home, Dean?” the smaller boy asks.

“What’re you talking about, Sammy?” The boy’s, _Dean’s_ , voice is light and carefree, mimicking an emotion I can’t name. I know Dean wants Sammy to believe he is feeling this emotion, although I don’t understand why. “Sure we have a home.”

Sammy throws the blanket off and sits up against the back of my seat. “You’re so full of it. If we got a home, why’re we always staying in crappy motels?”

I become aware of the man sitting in my front seat when his hand tightens around my steering wheel. A low growl of a voice says, “Thought I told you to keep it down back there.”

My attention is drawn away by a new emotion. I feel it. I name it. Fear.

“Sorry, sir,” Dean says quietly, then makes a shushing sound and pulls Sammy back under the blanket with him.

For a moment, there is silence. When Dean speaks again, it’s in a whisper. “OK, think about it, right? A home is a place where you spend time with your family. Well, what d’you think we’re doing right now?”

“Yeah, but—”

Dean shifts to get a better look at Sammy’s face, and I feel his elbow poking into my seat when he rests his cheek on his hand. “And it’s a place where you keep your toys. You know how the vents always rattle when Dad turns on the heat? That’s ‘cause it’s where I like to keep my Legos.”

Sammy shakes his head, the motion causing his hair to brush against the upholstery. “The teacher was talking about a house, Dean. A car can’t be a home.”

Another silence. Then, softly, Dean says, “Well, I think it can.”

*** 

The years pass, and there are many more nights of two boys huddled together in the back seat. Some, I like — the ones when Dean feels cheerful and content, when there is teasing and laughter. On those nights, Dean calls me “Baby” and his voice is warm with two emotions I like: pride, and contentment.

Many other nights, I would rather forget. On those nights, I feel Dean’s muscles tighten with the anticipation of a fight, or with the remembered sting of a hand on his cheek. I wish I could tell him that he’s not alone with his feelings, or that I could comfort him with more than the low, steady rumble of my engine.

***

Sammy becomes Sam. Dean sometimes sits in my driver’s seat now, the man called Dad keeping watch next to him. Sam is still in the back seat. I don’t feel his emotions the way I do Dean’s, but he talks about them plenty. He feels angry, trapped and resentful. Dean feels these things too, but he doesn’t mention it.

One night, everything changes. I’m parked in front of an old house with a wraparound porch, and the sound of raised voices reaches me from inside. It’s a sound I’m used to, but something is different tonight.

My door opens, and Dean slumps into the driver’s seat. I think he’s going to slide the key into my ignition and drive, but he doesn’t. He sits, and he waits. The glow of his emotions is blood-red tonight, raw with anger and sorrow in equal measure. I worry that one or both of us will disintegrate with the force of it.

The passenger door opens, and Sam takes a seat next to Dean. Sorrow yields to anger. “What the fuck, Sammy? You’re gonna take off, just like that?”

“I told you I was applying to colleges, Dean. You said it was a good thing.”

“Yeah, but… fuck.” Dean slams his head into my steering wheel. He exhales heavily, and the air from his lungs brushes across my dashboard. “It’s Stanford, man. It’s in _California_.”

I can’t feel the flare of Sam’s irritation, but I can hear it in the sharpness of his voice. “Oh, what, you want me to go somewhere closer to home? And where would that be, Dean?”

Another breath, another puff of air, and a deep, insistent pulsing of grief for what’s about to end.

When Sam speaks again, his voice is much softer. “You know, you could leave too, Dean. You don’t owe him anything.”

“I owe him everything, Sam,” Dean tells my steering wheel. “So, you know, good luck in your future endeavors or whatever. I know where I’m at home, and it sure as hell ain’t in California.”

Sam leaves then, and Dean does turn on my engine this time. He leaves me in front of a bar. When he returns, hours later, he slides into my back seat and makes his body small against the leather. He holds on tight, and I wish I could return the embrace.

The next morning, Dad takes his place in the passenger seat, but the back seat remains empty.

***

Sam’s return inspires complicated feelings. There is hope, but also guilt, and the dread of an unknown future.

The days when hope wins out are my favorites. I hear the sounds of teasing and laughter in the front seat, the cheerful roar of music from my tape deck, and I know that this is how things are meant to be. I feel the way Dean relaxes into the driver’s seat, and let the warmth of his happiness wash over me. 

Twice, over the years, my consciousness fades and the darkness almost claims me. The first time, there is pain and blood and the crunch of metal. I wake to the feeling of grief. It thrashes and roars through me, like an infection swelling and warping everything in its path. It hurts, but, like all things, it fades with time.

The second time, Dean disappears, and I feel at odds, untethered. I start to fade.

When a hand glides across my hood, I jolt back to awareness. “Hey there, Baby,” Dean’s voice says, softly. “I’m home.”

I hear the words, but I don’t feel the emotions they should inspire. Something about Dean’s glow changed while he was gone. It has become ragged, sharp-edged.

***

A new person starts to share the car with Dean and Sam. The first time he slides into the front seat, I breathe him in, and the sharp edges smooth out. I soon come to know his name: Castiel. _Cas._

“I rebelled against my home, Dean,” Cas says one night, in my passenger seat. “I can never go back.” A short silence, filled with a low pulse of hope and dread. “If Heaven is barred to me, then where do I belong?”

Hope flares wildly now, through and around me. “Sometimes,” Dean says, “home is where you want it to be.”

Cas says nothing, and hope gives way to resignation.

*** 

I soon realize that Cas is not like Sam, or Dad. He’s faith, and joy, and hope. When he leaves, as he often does, he’s desolation, and loneliness, and yearning.

But even as Cas comes and goes, one thing remains. It begins small and precious, unfurling in the quiet spaces of the night where no one can see. With time, it grows steadily, until every one of my gleaming metal fixtures aches with it. I hold it close and examine it. It feels like our love for Sam, and yet it doesn’t. It feels fearful and hopeful all at the same time.

I name it love, though the word seems inadequate.

***

One night, years later, Cas is back in my passenger seat. He slumps against it, his weight somehow heavier than I remember it. “Chuck is gone, and so is Heaven as we know it,” he says. “Maybe I was foolish, but part of me always thought that if we fixed Heaven, there would be a place in it for me.” He shakes his head, his back shifting against my upholstery with the motion. “But what is it humans say? ‘You can’t go home again.’”

Hope and fierce affection rear up, and I remember another night; another conversation about going home.

“You can,” Dean says, “because your home’s been waiting right here for you all this time.”

He leans across my seat.

The weight of the two of them together feels right, like the smooth comfort of a newly paved, sun-warmed road.

***

After that night, Cas doesn’t leave anymore. I wait, and I worry with each new morning that _this_ will be the day when the pain and the sharp edges return.

But time continues to pass, and the worry fades. Sometimes, Sam still sits in the front seat and Cas in the back, but more often now, it’s Cas in the front.

Eventually, Sam leaves. This time, there's no sorrow in it, because Sam has found a home of his own.

*** 

Dean removes the guns, knives and charms from my trunk, replaces them with a small bike, a jump rope and balls of all shapes and sizes. He presses a car seat into my upholstery and buckles a small girl named Charlie into it.

Two years later, there is another car seat, and another small body to occupy it. “Bobby,” Dean says, and he glows more brightly than ever.

Through it all, Cas is there in the front seat.

As the children grow, I start to feel my age more and more. I know Dean has to work harder to keep me going, especially on the colder days. He can feel the end coming just as well as I can.

Early one morning, he puts the key in my ignition, Cas next to him, Charlie and Bobby in the back. “What d’you say, kiddos? One last big road trip to give Baby a proper sendoff?”

Bobby and Charlie cheer, and Cas’ quiet chuckle merges with the rumble of my engine.

As the sun hits my hood and the road leading to the house fades into the distance behind me, Charlie starts to kick the front seat. “Daaaaad, are we there yet?”

“No,” Dean growls, hands tightening around my steering wheel. “And if you don’t stop kicking the fu— the seat right now, I’m turning the car around and heading right back home.”

“Noooo,” Bobby whines. “Home is boring. I like Baby better.”

“Behave, then,” Dean says. He means it to sound firm, but his glow softens and warms when he leans across my seat to rest the weight of his hand on Cas’ thigh.

“We got a good thing going, don’t we?” Dean whispers.

Cas hums his agreement. “I really think we do.”

Then Bobby starts to whine again, and seconds later, Charlie’s foot connects once more with the back of my seat. Lightning-fast, Cas spins around to face the back. “Stop,” he says, a crackle of irresistible command in his voice, “or I’m going to drink your juice box.”

Charlie stills instantly, and so does Bobby. Silence falls.

“Damn,” Dean grumbles, mostly to himself. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

***

A few days later, the knowledge rises up inside me with each additional mile: this is the end. I’ve been loved and well cared for, but I’m a very old machine now.

I rattle and sigh to a stop on a gravel shoulder next to a forest. Dean gets out and pops my hood. I regret his distress, but I know he has no true need of me anymore.

As I fade away, I hear the low rumble of Cas’ voice next to me. It sounds a little like my engine. “Baby had a good life, Dean. She served you well.”

I feel Dean’s distress fade into a small, quiet melancholy.

Then, so softly I can barely hear him through the fog of fading consciousness, he speaks to me one last time.

“Come on, Baby. Let’s take you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please let me know! Comments and kudos are the reason I keep writing.
> 
> Also, come talk to me on [tumblr](https://friendofcarlotta.tumblr.com)!
> 
> If you'd like to know what I'm up to next, make sure you subscribe to me on [my author page](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta). My next WIP, The Driver, starts Thursday. Here's the summary:
> 
> Dean Winchester is a mechanic and occasional movie stunt driver living in LA. Most people don't know that Dean also drives getaway cars for armed robberies.
> 
> For months now, Dean has been nursing a crush on his neighbor, a single father named Castiel. When a violent turf war between Dean's boss and a rival gangster threatens to compromise the safety of Castiel and his son, Dean makes a choice that will change his life forever.


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